stream-of-consciousness wankery, with apology.
11 june 2004.
underwater and counting
.
.
Small consolation: Tidus doesn't look much like his father. Grown used to the favors he can get, was taught back in Bevelle but didn't understand until now, how to satisfy oneself with what one had. They were encouraged to meditate, rake gardens of gravel into concentric circle around rocks and spiny Bikanel plants. He was never very good at it, though he tried. Hands weren't made for calligraphy brushes; in that arena the brush was mightier than the sword; outside with the fiends it didn't matter.
Never been so outside as this, though, a thousand years and counting, only the gulls and a sullen little boy for company. Auron would have preferred the fiends. This city! How the priests of Yevon would wail and mourn, though the sound of people and machina would drown them out utterly. Even here by the sea nothing is natural. Billboards facing the seafront, false daylight, he'd lain aside his sword when he saw no enemies but only curiosity facing it. How do you expect me to figure out this world, Jecht, this was your last joke, wasn't it, I can hear you laughing. Don't think much of it.
Or of your son, though aeons and Yevon both know I'm trying. Tidus didn't question Auron's sudden appearance and familiarity in his life. Didn't raise Auron's opinion of children, much, but no one was asking him.
Kicking around a blitzball instead of out there in a search boat. Of course Jecht's body isn't out there but it's the clenched-fist way the boy won't even look in the direction of the boat, the furious tears when his mother talks about Jecht at all. I'd shake him until his teeth rattle in that empty head of his if I could. Blitzball! He doesn't look like you, but his priorities are all the same.
Not that Auron's any less single-minded. Pyreflies, a promise, determination; all he is, all he needs to be. Watches Tidus wade in up to his knees, fling himself face-first into the water. Thirty seconds, up for air, back down. Forty-five seconds this time, probably, though he no longer has a heartbeat against which to measure the seconds. A thousand years into the past and he's the one who feels backward, awkward. The jug at his side thumps against his hip, not quite empty. Give me another few hours and it will be.
Two minutes thirty seconds and he hauls Tidus up by the collar. Wet blond hair plastered to his forehead, green phosphorescent glow streaking clothing and face, vertical down his cheeks like radioactive tears. No business of his to demand an explanation but when Tidus draws in a breath and then another and clenches his dirty fist in the folds of Auron's coat, shouting high and breathless about hating blitzball, hating the water, hating Auron, he understands. Thinks he understands, and that's not enough even now, but I promised to look after him for you, Jecht, you want any more, you do it yourself.
In the distance he can see the harbor, the boats sailing in, going out.